[b]Things They Won't Tell You About Armor 2.0[/b] While the various Youtube channels and gaming sites are well-intentioned, their content is aimed at the masses and as such, not going to help with fine-tuning and optimizing your armor setup. So take the following with a grain of salt (your mileage may vary). This assumes you understand the basic premise with the Armor 2.0 system, where to find armor mods (they drop, you can obtain dailies from Banshee-44 and redeeming materials and tokens from most of the vendors) and how the new armor system works (ie: armor attributes that are geared towards specific weapons, abilities and so on). First, with very few exceptions - Armor 1.0 pieces are going to suck (there's a reason why Bungie indicated the vast majority of players were going to switch over to Armor to 2.0 in short order). Also, Solstice and Black Forge armor stats suck (just keep that in-mind if you like the resistance and aesthetic aspects). Second, none of the pre-Shadowkeep armor (ie: Wing Discipline, Black Forge, etc.) will work with the new Shadowkeep armor perks - even if earned in-game. The extra armor perk slot will work for the older Menagerie (etc.) perks - just not the new Shadowkeep Nightmare ones. Excluding rare (and below) armor, actual armor stats for Armor 2.0 pieces drop in the high 40's to low 50's for most casual activities. When running events like the Legendary Nightfall and Vex Offensive these have been known to consistently drop in the mid to high 50's. For stats higher than 60 on legendary armor you need to run the 980-level or Raid content. When re-obtained from collections, all exotics default to a predetermined alignment with a stat of 48 (when found in the 'wild', these will typically be in the high 50's to low 60's). Of the 5 armor pieces - only 4 have stats (the mark does not come with any). On the low-end you'll have a point total of around 160-170 to work with, 190-200 on the mid-end, 230-240 on the high-end and 270-280 on the extreme-end of things. It's important to know that an armor with high stat values are not necessarily indicative of great armor, because there are a few factors that come into play. The numbers "2", "3" and "4" are your friends. Why? Each 10 stats in a specific attribute yields +1 tier level (remnants don't count). When combined across multiple pieces, stats ending in "2", "3" and "4" will typically combine to yield solid +10's, +11's and +12's - ensuring a minimal of wasted points. While you can boost each attribute with specific armor mods, these yield a +10 stat bonus. Each armor piece (including the mark) can be masterworked for a bonus of +12 (+2 to each type of stat). The bonus for the mark is hidden and isn't indicated in-game. As such, this will grant +10 to every stat (total of 60 points) when your entire armor set is masterworked. So ideally, before you start masterworking - you'll want to ensure most of your stat values end in low numbers (<15) to minimize stat loss. If you have armor pieces that end in "7", "8" or "9" - you might want to keep farming for armor that will combine to give you the most tiers while wasting the fewest number of stat points. Great armor pieces aren't just a component of the total stat value. They also have to be the right alignment for your setup as well as merge or blend with existing attributes across other armor pieces to maximize attribute tiers (there's also aesthetic considerations). In the ultimate end-game armor setup you'd probably have around 320 points spread across 6 attributes (after masterworking), with anywhere from 10-20 points wasted (but no more). That would yield about 30 tiers in total (before armor mod boosts). So with about 14-15 tiers on the beginner side to about 30 tiers for the "uber-impossible" end-game, it should give you a rough idea how well your own armor quest is faring.